Category management Neeraj nathani

Category management

Category management is a retailing and purchasing concept in which the range of products purchased by a business organization or sold by a retailer is broken down into discrete groups of similar or related products; these groups are known as product categories (examples of grocery categories might be: tinned fish, washing detergent, toothpastes). It is a systematic, disciplined approach to managing a product category as a strategic business unit.^[1] The phrase "category management" was coined by Brian F. Harris.^{[n/a 1]}

Category management in a retail context

Each category is run as a "mini business" (business unit) in its own right, with its own set of turnover and/or profitability targets and strategies. Introduction of Category Management in a business tends to alter the relationship between retailer and supplier: instead of the traditional adversarial relationship, the relationship moves to one of collaboration, with exchange of information, sharing of data and joint business building.

The focus of all supplier negotiations is the effect on turnover of the category as whole, not just the sales of individual products. Suppliers are expected, indeed in many cases mandated, to only suggest new product introductions, a new planogram or promotional activity if it is expected to have a beneficial effect on the turnover or profit of the total category and be beneficial to the shoppers of that category.

The concept originated in grocery (mass merchandising) retailing, and has since expanded to other retail sectors such as DIY, cash and carry, pharmacy, and book retailing.^[2]

Definition of category management (retail)

Category management lacks a single definition thus leading to some ambiguity even among industry professionals as to its exact function. Three comparative mainstream definitions are as follows:
Category management is a process that involves managing product categories as business units and customizing them [on a store by store basis] to satisfy customer needs. (Nielsen)^[3]
The strategic management of product groups through trade partnerships which aims to maximize sales and profit by satisfying consumer and shopper needs (Institute of Grocery Distribution)^[4]
.. marketing strategy in which a full line of products (instead of the individual products or brands) is managed as a strategic business unit (SBU). (Business Dictionary)^[5]
The Nielsen definition, published in 1992, was a little ahead of its time in that customising product offerings on a store by store basis is logistically difficult and is now not considered a necessary part of category management; it is a concept now referred to as micromarketing. Nevertheless, most grocery retailers will segment stores at least by size, and select product assortments accordingly. Wal*Mart's Store of the Community, implemented in North America is one of the few examples of where product offerings are tailored right down to the specific store.^[6]

Definition of a category

The Nielsen definition of a category, used as the basic definition across the industry is that the products should meet a similar consumer need, or that the products should be inter-related or substitutable.^[8] The Nielsen definition also includes a provision that products placed together in the same category should be logistically manageable in store (for example there may be issues in having room-temperature and chilled products together in the same category even though the initial two conditions are met).

However, this definition does not explain how the process often works in practical retailing situations, where demographic or marketing considerations take precedence.

The category management 8-step process (retail)

The category management 8-step process

The industry standard model for category management in retail is the 8-step process, or 8-step cycle developed by the Partnering Group.^[9] The eight steps are shown in the diagram on the right; they are :

1. Define the category (i.e. what products are included/excluded).
2. Define the role of the category within the retailer.
3. Assess the current performance.
4. Set objectives and targets for the category.
5. Devise an overall Strategy.
6. Devise specific tactics.
7. Implementation.
8. The eighth step is one of review which takes us back to step 1.

The 8-step process, whilst being very comprehensive and thorough has been criticized for being rather too unwieldy and time-consuming in today's fast-moving sales environment; in one survey only 9% of supplier companies stated they used the full 8-step process.^[10] The current industry trend is for supplier companies to use the standard process as a basis to develop their own more streamlined processes, tailored to their own particular products^[11]

Market research company Nielsen has a similar process based on only 5 steps : reviewing the category, targeting consumers, planning merchandising, implementing strategy, evaluating results

Category captains

It is commonplace for one particular supplier into a category to be nominated by the retailer as a category captain. The category captain will be expected to have the closest and most regular contact with the retailer and will also be expected to invest time, effort, and often financial investment into the strategic development of the category within the retailer.
In return, the supplier will gain a more influential voice with the retailer. The category captain is often the supplier with the largest turnover in the category. Traditionally the job of category captain is given to a brand supplier, but in recent times the role has also gone to particularly switched-on private label suppliers.^[12]
In order to do the job effectively, the supplier may be granted access to a greater wealth of data-sharing, e.g. more access to an internal sales database such as Walmart's Retail Link

Category management in purchasing

Category management can also be applied to purchasing within an organisation. Although the term is the same and there are many similarities with elements of retail category management including the use of similar tools and techniques applied in reverse, the methodology is fundamentally different. Applying Category Management in purchasing benefits organisations by providing an approach to reduce the cost of buying goods and services, reduce risk in the supply chain, increase overall value from the supply base and gain access to more innovation from suppliers. It is a strategic approach that focuses on the vast majority of organisational spend. If applied effectively throughout an entire organisation the results can be significantly greater than traditional transactional based purchasing negotiations.

The concept of Category Management in purchasing originated in the late 80's. There is no single founder or originator but the methodology first appeared in the automotive sector and has since been developed and adopted by organisations worldwide. Today Category Management is considered by many global companies as an essential strategic purchasing approach. Category Management has been defined as “an evolving methodology that drives sourcing strategy in progressive organisations today”.^[15]

The Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply defines Category Management as:

"organising the resources of the procurement team in such a way as to focus externally onto the supply markets of an organisation (as against having a focus on the internal customers or on internal Procurement departmental functions) in order to fully leverage purchasing decisions”.^[16]

Jonathan O'Brien, author of Category Management in Purchasing, defines Category Management as:

"the practice of segmenting the main areas of organisational spend on bought-in goods and services into discrete groups of products and services according to the function of those goods or services and, most importantly, to mirror how individual marketplaces are organised. Using this segmentation organisations work cross functionally on individual categories, examining the entire category spend, how the organisation uses the products or services within the category, the marketplace and individual suppliers.",^[17]

Peter Hunt, partner at ADR International, writes

“the term category management can mean different things to different people, so a working definition is needed. A ‘category’ is the logical grouping of similar expenditure items, such as spend on advertising agency services or IT hardware. Category management is the sourcing process used to manage these categories to satisfy business needs while maximising the value delivered from the supply base”.^[18]

Many public sector organisations have recently adopted category management as a strategic transformation tool. Sir Philip Green, in his “Efficiency Review” of UK government spending, recommended that “centralised procurement [should be] mandated for common categories to leverage this buying power and achieve best practice”.^[19]

Source: Wikipedia.

Neeraj Nathani Smart Bridge ETL TOOLS USED IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE & DATAWAREHOUSING PROJECTS.

ETL TOOLS USED IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE & DATAWAREHOUSING PROJECTS.

EXTRACT

The first part of an ETL process involves extracting the data from the source systems. In many cases this is the most challenging aspect of ETL, since extracting data correctly sets the stage for how subsequent processes go further.

Most data warehousing projects consolidate data from different source systems. Each separate system may also use a different data organization/format. Common data source formats are relational databases and flat files, but may include non-relational database structures such as Information Management System (IMS) or other data structures such as Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) or Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM), or even fetching from outside sources such as through web spidering or screen-scraping. The streaming of the extracted data source and load on-the-fly to the destination database is another way of performing ETL when no intermediate data storage is required. In general, the goal of the extraction phase is to convert the data into a single format which is appropriate for transformation processing.

An intrinsic part of the extraction involves the parsing of extracted data, resulting in a check if the data meets an expected pattern or structure. If not, the data may be rejected entirely or in part

Transform

The transform stage applies a series of rules or functions to the extracted data from the source to derive the data for loading into the end target. Some data sources will require very little or even no manipulation of data. In other cases, one or more of the following transformation types may be required to meet the business and technical needs of the target database:

• Selecting only certain columns to load (or selecting null columns not to load). For example, if the source data has three columns (also called attributes), for example roll_no, age, and salary, then the extraction may take only roll_no and salary. Similarly, the extraction mechanism may ignore all those records where salary is not present (salary = null).
• Translating coded values (e.g., if the source system stores 1 for male and 2 for female, but the warehouse stores M for male and F for female)
• Encoding free-form values (e.g., mapping "Male" to "1")
• Deriving a new calculated value (e.g., sale_amount = qty * unit_price)
• Sorting
• Joining data from multiple sources (e.g., lookup, merge) and deduplicating the data
• Aggregation (for example, rollup — summarizing multiple rows of data — total sales for each store, and for each region, etc.)
• Generating surrogate-key values
• Transposing or pivoting (turning multiple columns into multiple rows or vice versa)
• Splitting a column into multiple columns (e.g., converting a comma-separated list, specified as a string in one column, into individual values in different columns)
• Disaggregation of repeating columns into a separate detail table (e.g., moving a series of addresses in one record into single addresses in a set of records in a linked address table)
• Lookup and validate the relevant data from tables or referential files for slowly changing dimensions.
• Applying any form of simple or complex data validation. If validation fails, it may result in a full, partial or no rejection of the data, and thus none, some or all the data is handed over to the next step, depending on the rule design and exception handling. Many of the above transformations may result in exceptions, for example, when a code translation parses an unknown code in the extracted data.

Load

The load phase loads the data into the end target, usually the data warehouse (DW). Depending on the requirements of the organization, this process varies widely. Some data warehouses may overwrite existing information with cumulative information, frequently updating extract data is done on daily, weekly or monthly basis. Other DW (or even other parts of the same DW) may add new data in a historical form, for example, hourly. To understand this, consider a DW that is required to maintain sales records of the last year. Then, the DW will overwrite any data that is older than a year with newer data. However, the entry of data for any one year window will be made in a historical manner. The timing and scope to replace or append are strategic design choices dependent on the time available and the business needs. More complex systems can maintain a history and audit trail of all changes to the data loaded in the DW.
As the load phase interacts with a database, the constraints defined in the database schema — as well as in triggers activated upon data load — apply (for example, uniqueness, referential integrity, mandatory fields), which also contribute to the overall data quality performance of the ETL process.

• For example, a financial institution might have information on a customer in several departments and each department might have that customer's information listed in a different way. The membership department might list the customer by name, whereas the accounting department might list the customer by number. ETL can bundle all this data and consolidate it into a uniform presentation, such as for storing in a database or data warehouse.

• Another way that companies use ETL is to move information to another application permanently. For instance, the new application might use another database vendor and most likely a very different database schema. ETL can be used to transform the data into a format suitable for the new application to use.

• An example of this would be an Expense and Cost Recovery System (ECRS) such as used by accountancies, consultancies and lawyers. The data usually ends up in the time and billing system, although some businesses may also utilize the raw data for employee productivity reports to Human Resources (personnel dept.) or equipment usage reports to Facilities Management.

BELOW ARE THE TOOLS USED:

A Ab Initio (company) Apatar B BusinessObjects Data Integrator D Data Moving Tool Data Transformation Services DMExpress E Expense and Cost Recovery System (ECRS)

I

• IBM InfoSphere DataStage
• Informatica

L

• LogiXML

M

• MuleSoft

O

• Oracle Warehouse Builder

P

• Pentaho
• Pervasive Software
• Pipeline Pilot

S

• Scriptella
• SnapLogic
• Sprog (software)
• SQL Server Integration Services
• Sunopsis

T

Talend Open Studio for Data Integration

Source: Wikipedia.

FMCG Market Smart Bridge Neeraj Nathani

                                                                FMCG Market

Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) or consumer packaged goods (CPG) are products that are sold quickly and at relatively low cost. Examples include non-durable goods such as soft drinks, toiletries, and grocery items.^[1][2] Though the absolute profit made on FMCG products is relatively small, they are generally sold in large quantities, and so the cumulative profit on such products can be substantial.
Fast-moving consumer electronics are a type of FMCG and are typically low priced generic or easily substitutable consumer electronics, including lower end mobile phones, MP3 players, game players, and digital cameras, which have a short usage life, typically a year or less, and as such are disposable. Cheap FMCG electronics are often retained even after immediate failure, as the purchaser rationalizes the decision to not return the goods on the basis that the goods were cheap to begin with, and that the cost of return relative to the low cost of purchase is high. Thus low-quality electronic FMCG goods can be highly profitable for the vendors.
The term FMCGs refers to those retail goods that are generally replaced or fully used up over a short period of days, weeks, or months, and within one year. This contrasts with durable goods or major appliances such as kitchen appliances, which are generally replaced over a period of several years
FMCG have a short shelf life, either as a result of high consumer demand or because the product deteriorates rapidly. Some FMCGs—such as meat, fruits and vegetables, dairy products, and baked goods—are highly perishable. Other goods such as alcohol, toiletries, pre-packaged foods, soft drinks, and cleaning products have high turnover rates. An excellent example is a newspaper—every day's newspaper carries different content, making one useless just one day later, necessitating a new purchase every day.

The following are the main characteristics of FMCGs:^[1]

• From the consumers' perspective:
• Frequent purchase
• Low involvement (little or no effort to choose the item – products with strong brand loyalty are exceptions to this rule)
• Low price
• From the marketers' angle:
• High volumes
• Low contribution margins
• Extensive distribution networks
• High stock turnover

Source: Wikipedia.

Neeraj Nathani TELECOM BILLING

                                                TELECOM BILLING

Billing is the aggregation of all non-recurring, periodic, and chargeable events, on an account by account basis. It is also the calculation of all outstanding charges and available discounts and bonuses.

The output from billing process is a stream of tagged bill data that can be used to create a bill on paper, disk, or any other media. Billing Engine which is part of the Billing System performs creates invoices.

Bill Process:

The following diagram shows the basic diagram of the Billing Engine and associated functions:

Billing Engine picks up an account due to generate a billing and following associated information to generate invoice data:

• All the rated CDRs for the customer with-in the month of invoice.
• All type of charges ( initiation, installation, periodic, suspension, termination etc.) applicable for the customer's product and services.
• If there is any refund or any other charges applicable.
• Total outstanding from previous bills.
• Total payments made by the customer in the given month.
• Total adjustment passed in favor of the customer or against the customer.
• Total discount given to the customer.
• Total taxes applicable on customer usage and rental charges.
• Billing configuration parameter required to run the Billing Engine, for example payment due date etc.

Above mentioned information is just an indicative and may vary from billing system to billing system and operator to operator.

Billing Engine produce raw data having all the information required to generate a final bill and this raw data can be used to generate a final invoice to be sent to the end customer.

Bill Cycles:

When a customer is added into the Billing System, system assigns the customer a predefined Bill Cycle. A bill cycle is a date on while Billing Engine runs and produces bill for a set of customers.

If there are many customers, then they are divided in to different billing cycles. For example, a group of customers can have billing data as 1st of every month; another can have the bill date of 15th of every month.

If customer is assigned to run a bill on 1st of the month, this would be called customer's nominal bill date. But because of various reasons, many times bill run becomes belay and actual bill gets generated on a later date, this would be called actual bill date.

Bill Types:

There could be various types of bill available for a user. Few of them may not be supported by some Billing System.

Bill Type	Description
Initiation bill	Normally only requested as the first bill on an account. Includes product charges and adjustments, but no events.
Periodic bill	Produced at regular intervals. Includes all periodic charges, events, and adjustments.
Interim bill	An extra bill that contains charges due to events processed for the account since the last bill. Includes all events and adjustments, but no periodic charges.
Suspension bill	Sent when an account has been suspended. Includes all periodic charges, events, and adjustments.
Final bill	Sent when an account has been terminated to bill all outstanding charges that are due. Includes all periodic charges, events, and adjustments, along with any refunds, for example, the return of a deposit.
Post-final bill	Sent when a terminated account has receivables outstanding after the production of a final bill. Includes any post-termination events and adjustments, but no periodic charges.
Credit note	An extra bill that contains all adjustments in the customer.s favor generated since the last bill.
Summary Statements	A summary statement can be produced for a customer-driven billing hierarchy. It can summarize all bills produced by all accounts below the customer it is associated with. Optionally, they can also concatenate all the bills into a single statement.

Bills are produced either automatically, or on request from a customer.

Billing Modes:

A Billing System can generate bills in two modes, for example:

• Test (what if?) billing mode . This mode if used to produce formatted test bills whilst leaving the database unchanged. These bills are useful to make sure that system is working fine and test after making changes to bill templates or tariffs.

When running the Billing Engine in test mode, commits are not made to the database. So there would not be any impact on customer's profile even after running test billing many number of time.

Test bills are usually run for a sample set of customers. If you are satisfied with the test bills then you can proceed for production bills.

• Production (live) billing mode . This mode is used to produce normal production bills. Most of the time, this is the default mode for the Billing Engine.

Once a production bill is generated, Billing Engine updates customer's profile in the database with the total outstanding balance to be paid by the customer, and next bill date etc.

Billing Engine assigns different invoice numbers to all the production bills which helps in keeping track of different payments made against the invoice.

Bill Suppression:

There may be a situation when it is not worth to generate a bill, and better to suppress the bill. Following are such type of situations:

• Suppressing bills for accounts with zero (zero activity bills) or very little value (small bills).
• A particular type of bill can also suppressed if multiple bill types are requested/scheduled at the same time and therefore preventing unnecessary bills from being sent to the customer.

A small bill is a bill that falls between the range defined by the minimum positive bill amount and the maximum negative bill amount exceptional bill conditions. Small valued bills are produced and then removed from the billing process, so that they are not sent out to customers.

Exceptional Bills:

Examples of possible exceptional bills are unusually high bills or bills which exceed the account's credit limit by a set multiplier. The Billing Engine performs some basic checks on the bill data that it produces. These involve testing the total being billed to ensure that the following conditions are met:

• The bill total is greater than the minimum negative bill amount.
• The bill total is less than the maximum positive bill amount.
• The bill total is less than account's credit limit multiplied by the credit limit multiplier.

All the above conditions vary from billing system to billing system and operator to operator and they are called exceptional bills conditions.

Bill Itemization:

By default, all the invoices provide a detail summary of product and services charges along with usage charges. But it does not provide a detail on all the calls made by the customer.

An itemized bill means giving complete detail of all the calls made by the customer. This needs more number of papers to be printed. Recent trend is to send itemized bill through electronic email and summary statement is sent using a physical copy of the bill.

Bill Formatting:

There are Billing Systems who provide Billing Formatting utilities which can be used to generate final formatted bills.

Bill formatters take the output data produced by the Billing Engine and usually generate either Post Script file or a PDF file which can be used by the Bill Printing Company.

If Billing System is not capable enough to generate formatted bills then system generates a set of tags files alongwith billing information and any external Bill Formatter can use those tagged information to generate a well formatted invoice.

No matter, if Billing System generates formatted invoice or we use any external tool to generate these formatted invoice using raw data generated by the billing engine, finally these invoice are sent to the bill printing company who takes care of generating final copy of generating invoice. I will explain it in detail in subsequent chapter "Invoice Generation".

Source: Wikipedia.